


Icebound

by springburn



Series: Dr Who mini fics and prompts [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cabins, Cold Weather, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Snow and Ice, Trapped, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4603509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springburn/pseuds/springburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story is set early on in the Doctor and Clara's relationship.....yes, they love each other.........that's a given as far as I'm concerned, but they haven't really acknowledged it yet, either to themselves or each other!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icebound

**Author's Note:**

> This was a great prompt.......petersgal said...." I know ive already given you a prompt but i thought of this one today at work and well cant shake it off..so here goes..clara and the doctor are trapped and clara is hurt.....thats it,been done a milliion times before,but well thought you might be able to do a different take on it....."  
> I wanted to be a bit different for this, avoid the 'alien planet/chased by monsters' thing, which has pretty much been done. So here goes......  
> Remember 'Cold War' the Matt Smith episode, which ends with The Doctor and Clara in the Arctic......and the Tardis in the Antarctic?.......well, She's done it again.......!

ICEBOUND. 

 

The bloody Antarctic......again!  
Sod it!  
What was wrong with the 'Old Girl'?  
This was the second time she'd wound up here......by mistake.  
His Bow-tie self and Clara had found Her easily enough that time......but now?  
Nowhere to be seen.  
Vanished.  
They'd searched.  
Then the weather closed in.  
Always unpredictable at the best of times.  
Walking, head down, battling against the wind, she'd fallen.  
A crevice had opened in the ice floe.  
Down she went.  
At first he feared he'd lost her for good, as she disappeared beneath the icy water.  
He screamed her name, throwing himself down onto his stomach at the edge, peering over into the depths.  
The relief when she popped up, like a cork. Spluttering, gasping as the intense cold hit her.  
He'd grabbed her hand, hauled her out. It was only a matter of seconds, but she was chilled to the bone.  
Gathered her up, despite her protests, carried her, shivering, teeth chattering, wrapped in his own thermal coat.  
True, he adapted more easily to the cold, but even he wouldn't last long in this temperature without it.  
He'd spotted it then.........the little wooden cabin.  
A gift from the Gods. A sight for sore eyes.  
The shelter.......nothing more than a wooden shack really, originally built by Sir Robert Falcon Scott and his polar exploration team.  
In 1912, on his fateful South Pole expedition.  
Perfectly preserved, like a snapshot in time. 

Kicking open the door he tumbled inside.  
Thank God.  
The place smelled faintly of tobacco, and pemmican stew.  
Musty.....stale......everything held in suspended animation by the frigid atmosphere, the polar cold.  
Rusty tins, old books, desiccated papers and maps, the mummified remains of penguins captured for scientific purposes or for a welcome change to a monotonous diet.  
Frozen in time. Literally.  
The Doctor laid the shivering Clara on the floor, examined her closely.  
Ice crystals had formed on her saturated clothing, her eyelashes, round her nose and mouth and in her hair.  
Her arm was broken, caught on the ice floe as she fell.  
Gently he peeled off the wet layers.  
Wrapped her again within his insulated coat.  
Must get her warm and dry.  
Glancing around he spotted various items of ancient clothing, woollen socks, vests, oil skins, thin knitted garments designed to be worn in many layers, mittens lined with rabbit fur, a Harris tweed overcoat.  
Who came to the Antarctic in a Harris Tweed coat?  
He pulled down a few items and began to redress her, as she quaked beneath his delicate fingers.  
She was passed embarrassment, and so was he.  
Left arm at an odd angle......greenstick fracture probably.  
Taking a knitted scarf, he folded the arm gently against her body, hand to her own shoulder, across her chest, and bound it tight, immobilising it.  
He'd noticed some old wooden crates stacked against the outside door.  
Get a fire going.....get her warm and quick.  
Opening the door was a challenge. The wind almost ripped it from his grasp, buffeting and gusting. Gale force.  
Relentlessly whipping across the glacial plain, like a creature with sharp teeth, biting and gnawing.  
He re-entered the shack in a swirl of snowflakes, carrying as many crates as he could.  
Smashing them to a more manageable size, with his booted foot, he prised open the door of the little cast iron stove, that stood to one side of the cabin, it's metal chimney sticking out of the top and disappearing up through the roof.  
Firelighters from his back pack served as kindling, and a carefully aimed burst with the sonic ignited them.  
Soon a healthy little blaze was crackling and spitting in a friendly way, as a warm orange glow began to seep around the room.  
Bunks made of slats, were built at one end, he dragged down the blankets and made Clara a little bed, on the floor right beside the stove.  
She still shook like a twig in a storm. Jaw juddering out of control. Unable to vocalise.  
"Come on, my Clara, stay awake. You have hypothermia, you mustn't fall asleep."  
He massaged her legs and feet......blocks of ice, both of them.  
Rubbing vigorously, although there wasn't much warmth in his hands.  
The fire began to thaw him slowly......his hearts working hard, adrenaline making him alert, they would be okay. Everything would be fine.  
Well, at least they wouldn't die of thirst.....they were completely surrounded by water. Albeit frozen solid!  
Scraping a pan full of fresh snow from the window ledge, he placed it on the stove top.  
His emergency back pack contained plenty of supplies, freeze dried food, milk powder, teabags, other comestibles......  
"Clara! Sit up. Drink this."  
He eased her more upright, hand behind her neck, so careful, so tender, yet she was in too much pain to notice, as her numbed limbs started to come back to life.  
Steaming hot chocolate, made with water and milk substitute, but tasting like the best thing in the whole world.  
Protein biscuits, high in carbs, fuel for the body.  
She sipped, feeling the warm liquid coursing down inside her. She ate.  
"Better?"  
"Better." She shuddered, holding his hand tight. 

So.....they were trapped......  
Just as surely as if they were on some strange and exotic planet, with any number of alien species, any manner of potential dangers. How many times had they come close to death, been captured, managed to escape by the skin of their teeth........and here they were, on Earth, caught by a ruddy blizzard!  
Oh! The irony!  
Night drew on.....except it didn't!  
An eerie twilight.  
The Antarctic Summer, the sun barely dipping below the horizon.  
A pink gauzy haze.  
Majestically beautiful......well, it would be, if you could see anything at all through the whiteout. 

The Doctor curled himself close to Clara, as much to transfer body warmth as anything else.  
At least that's what he told himself.  
Dozing fitfully as she now slept beside him, warm and stilled at last.  
Listen.  
The ceaseless moan of the wind. The way it sighed and whistled through every tiny crack, like the siren song.  
One moment high pitched, loud, a shrieking banshee, banging and rattling the wooden shutters, the next, a low howl like the hounds of Hell, racing in a pack, into oblivion.  
All the while, in the gloaming created by the flames, as they danced and flickered from the stove, dark shadows would leap up, looming about the walls in strange and sinister shapes, a crooked and gnarled hand, a caped fiend, a glowering monster, taking shape in the drowsy mind.  
Creaks and thuds, mutterings and whispers.  
This place was full of ghosts.  
Echoes of brave men long since gone.  
Inspired by this stark landscape, to conquer the unconquerable, reach further than any man had ever done. Only to die in the attempt, and haunt the very air around them.  
Restless, unsleeping.  
Such was the human race, the Doctor mused, as his thoughts drifted, always striving, always challenging themselves, higher, faster, deeper, longer.  
Baby steps. They were reaching out. Travelling to explore new planets soon.  
A world of trouble awaited them. But they would learn. Adapt. Triumph.  
Perhaps that was why he liked them so much. So courageous, so tenacious. Bold. Fearless.  
Just like his Clara. 

The fire burned low, embers tinkling through the grate, easing himself free from their clinging embrace, he stood up, stretched.  
Refuelled the blaze.  
Wandered to the icy window where a blueish light filtered in.  
Breathing on the glass he rubbed it vigorously with his sleeve.  
Peered out.  
Steely blue eyes reflecting the morning light.  
Penguins were ambling purposefully by outside, walking in line, with their awkward, almost comical waddle.  
Like a row of haughty guardsmen, marching towards the sea. Occasionally going down onto their tummies and punting themselves along, using their feet, and a guiding flipper.  
Whiffling to each other as they went.  
The merciless wind had died away.  
Warmth from the sun, penetrated the frozen air.  
A haze of hoarfrost, creating silken vapour, rising in tendrils all around.  
Glancing back to check on his sleeping companion, he reached for his thick coat and stepped out into the brilliance.  
The light hurt his eyes. Breath forming clouds in front of his face.  
Bitter cold assaulting his airways.  
Pulling out his Wayfarers, he put them on, able now to see into the distance, where yesterday he couldn't see a hand in front of his face.  
Crisp, almost sterile, a myriad of diamond sparkles, prisms of colour, stunningly beautiful.  
Everywhere the sound of drip, drip, drip, the fresh snowfall yielding under the suns life giving rays.  
As he turned to his left, he saw it.  
It had been completely hidden the day before, in the snowdrift.  
The flashing light on the top of the Tardis. Blinking on and off, rhythmically.  
Peeking through, above the now rapidly melting whiteness.  
Reaching for a shovel, which was propped beside the door of the cabin, he marched over and worked solidly for the next half an hour, clearing away the compacted snow.  
Cutting out a block as if building an igloo, throwing it aside, then cutting another, until the entrance was free and he could prise open the door.  
The sweat dried on his body from the effort. Chilling his lean frame to the marrow.  
Back into the cabin, he repacked their things.  
Put everything back where it belonged.  
Returned the little shack to the time warp, in which it hung, suspended.  
Extinguished the fire.  
Lastly he knelt, gathered up the still slumbering Clara, a feather light bundle in his arms.  
Carried her across the ice to the welcoming warmth of his sentient soulmate.  
Closing the door behind him gratefully.  
Heaving a sigh.  
Clara stirred, waking, grimaced from the pain in her arm.  
But smiled as she looked up into his dear face.  
Without thinking, he bent his head and kissed her lips.  
"We're home!" He whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> @petersgal hope you like what I've done with it......bit out of the ordinary I hope!


End file.
